'I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.' – Helen Keller (1880-1968)

'Come out into the world about you, be it either wide or limited. Sympathize, not in thought only, but in action, with all about you. Make yourself known and felt for something that would be loved and missed, in twenty thousand little ways, if you were to die; then your life will be a happy one, believe me.' – Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

This kitchen is beautiful. Just think of all the wonderful things I could make here…

I am 110 kinds of obsessed with this song right now. I'm almost embarrassed (but not) to admit that I listened to it about 10 times in a row while cooking dinner last night.

1. Hits to the national wallet. The national parks return more than $10 for every dollar invested by the taxpayer, Salazar pointed out. The park system is a profit center as productive as any in our economy. In 2011, Maine's Acadia National Park drew 2.4 million visitors, contributed $186 million to the state's economy, and supported 3,000 jobs. Yellowstone National Park drew 3.4 million visitors, contributed $333 million, and supported 5,000 jobs. Everglades National Parkdrew 934,000 visitors, contributed $147 million, and supported 2,400 jobs. And these are just three of the 398 national parks, monuments, memorials, reserves, preserves, historic sites, seashores, lakeshores, and battlefields across the country.

I really like the story of Fauja Singh, who is the world's oldest marathoner. From SUAR:

He ran his first marathon at 89 years of age

He could not walk steadily until he was almost ten years old due to weakness in his legs

He showed up for his first marathon training session in a three piece suit (my favorite bit of trivia)

He trained for only 10 weeks for his first marathon (2000 London Marathon. He ran a 6:54)

So, what brought Singh to running at such an old age? Intense and insurmountable grief. In 1994 (at the age of 83) and while living in India, Singh watched his son be decapitated in a freak accident. A piece of sheet metal flew off of a building and hit his son, killing him immediately.

Running became Singh’s salvation, his distraction. “When running, Fauja realized he thought only of his next step.” He reports feeling connected to God as his anger subsided and his grief lessened.

I don’t really know about the whole Myers-Briggs thing…I’m very border-line on all the traits so it can go a lot of different ways. According to Buzzfeed, "What's Your Animal Personality Type?" I’m a cat. I don't know how accurate it is...

7. ISTP: Cat

ISTPs are an interesting study in contrasts: they are naturally quiet and analytic, often drawn to the field of engineering or trying to figure out how boxes work. But they are also explorers who can easily become bored with a single routin. ISTPs are often closet daredevils drawn to racing, bungee jumping, or jumping off of high countertops. They are "live and let live" types who are not particularly concerned with rules or regulations and would prefer that others not concern themselves with their behavior either. Some have even remarked that "don't tread on me" is the perfect ISTP motto.

Prime ministers and presidents have a strong electoral incentive to minimize military casualties at the expense of civilians, or precisely what the IDF has been doing. Democracy works, and human rights violations are an outcome.

More specifically, his work establishes why the median [voter] has an incentive to support a technology heavy, labor light military: it represents a welfare gain for median voter (who contributes less to the public good of national defense as capital displaces labor in its production).

Caverley further shows that the lower a voters’ income, the more likely she is to support aggressive use of coercive bargaining in interstate conflicts.

This isn’t relevant for the cholera claims, but the Status of Forces agreements that the UN signs with countries where peacekeeping operations deploy include additional language stating that military personnel “shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of their respective participating States in respect of any criminal offences.” This means that even when peacekeepers commit crimes in no way related to their official duties (like, for instance, raping Congolese children), they can’t be prosecuted by the host country.

Argument 1: Babar, such interpreters have insisted, is an allegory of French colonization, as seen by the complacent colonizers: the naked African natives, represented by the “good” elephants, are brought to the imperial capital, acculturated, and then sent back to their homeland on a civilizing mission. The elephants that have assimilated to the ways of the metropolis dominate those which have not.

Argument 2: Fables for children work not by pointing to a moral but by complicating the moral of a point. The child does not dutifully take in the lesson that salvation lies in civilization, but, in good Freudian fashion, takes in the lesson that the pleasures of civilization come with discontent at its constraints: you ride the elevator, dress up in the green suit, and go to live in Celesteville, but an animal you remain–the dangerous humans and rhinoceroses are there to remind you of that–and you delight in being so.